What are Alexa rankings?

Alexa is a provider of free, global web metrics, and a person using their services can accomplish many things such as: competitive analysis, benchmarking, market research, and business development. Alexa rankings can be searched and managed via their website or custom toolbar to determine how much traffic websites are getting.  The system works by computing a combination of page views, visitors, and a host of other traffic data sources, one of them being the Alexa toolbar.

Their data is collected and grouped into seven categories which include traffic stats, search analytics, audience demographic, company contact information, reviews, and click stream.  Within each category, specific details are displayed such as bounce rate, time on site, visits from search engines, load times, percentage of visitors for the website’s sub-domains and regional traffic rank.  US, regional and global traffic ranks are even calculated.  Metrics are displayed using a combination of average daily visitors and page views over the past three months. The website with the highest combination of visitors and page views is ranked at the top.

With Google ranked in the number one spot, and Facebook and YouTube following closely behind, the competition for the top spots is fierce.  So, it’s probably unrealistic to strive to have a ranking as high as the top three, but there are definitely ways to maximize the potential of your website; especially in relation to your competition.  All the information on Alexa is public, so while doing analysis for your own website, do an analysis of your competition.  Try to notice if your visitors are getting exposure to your website using your competition’s top keywords and vice versa.

After reviewing your site and those of your competitors, we at CyberSense recommend implementing a variety of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies to increase your website’s Alexa ranking over time.  An effective SEM campaign always includes a well aligned SEO strategy; therefore, always ensure your website includes:

• Keyword-rich, valuable content to keep users coming back for more
• Consistent and well targeted blog posts
• User contributed content using surveys, user interaction, social networking, embedded videos
• Relevant and appropriate hyperlinks

By gaining visitors through strategic content, publicity, and referrals from other sites, your Alexa traffic ranking will begin to improve over time, and you can use the Alexa ranking tools to watch your presence grow.  If you ever need help evaluating the results or devising and altering an SEM or SEO strategy to improve your rankings, CyberSense would be glad to help keep you ahead of the game.